A Family Is. . . An Ecologically Balanced Environment

From Chapter 2 of Edith Schaeffer's What Is a Family?

Things to Ponder:

• How can I provide a good emotional, psychological, and intellectual environment for my children to grow in?
• How can I make our house a home?

Things to Do:

• Commit to and work with J to make decisions that breed family continuity and keep the family together.
• Make the house a home without putting expectations on others in the family. Do not make home-making an idol of the heart.
• Be honest when frustrated, appologize when neccessary, and always end the day on a warm, cozy note.
• *Do*not* under *any* circumstance compare our home with other people's homes.
• Create an emotional shelter for J and the children by holding them often and listening to them with understanding.

Reflection:

• Psalm 61:1-3 ~ "Hear my cry, O God; Attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed, Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For You have been a shelter for me, A strong tower from the enemy."
• How can I be a living example of this kind of God to my children? How can I be this sort of refuge to my children and husband? How can I make our home this kind of shelter?
• How can I point my children to God as a perfect refuge and shelter when they are overwhelmed?

Quotes:

• "What kind of an environment and proper balance was the first child to be born into? Oneness. There was meant to be oneness as an atmosphere. There was meant to be oneness as security."
• "God gave man and woman capacity for love and someone to love, capacity for gentleness and someone to whom to be gentle, capacity for communication and someone with whom to communicate, capacity for worshiping Him and having communication with Him -- their God -- and someone with whom to join for worship, capacity for learning and someone with whom to discuss all the new discoveries and understandings, capacity for physical oneness and someone with whom to become one in a myserious and very real way."
• "A home combines the shelter from physical storms and floods and physical attack of bandits with the reality of tiny, growing or adult human beings finding the shelter they need from intellectual, emotional, and spiritual attacks. The family and home are meant to be the environment where human beings can find shelter, warmth, protection, and safety in each other."
• "But the mother-wife is a big part of the environment, and the husband will be affected by her environment, even as the children will."